Lyric soprano Mari Eriksmoen has a blooming career on some of the world’s most prominent opera stages – including Milan’s La Scala, Berlin’s Komische Oper and the Aix-en-Provence Festival – as well as giving much-admired concert performances. With her remarkable purity of tone, her vivid stage personality and her effortless poise, she’s received universal praise.

Joined by German pianist Daniel Heide, much in demand for his own perceptive playing, Eriksmoen makes her International Festival debut with a wide-ranging recital of Romantic songs.

Haugtussa (The Mountain Maid) is the only song cycle composed by Eriksmoen’s compatriot Edvard Grieg, and tells of young love between a herding girl and a village boy in poignant songs evoking the mystical grandeur of Norwegian nature. The Norwegian soprano gives a rare performance of Grieg’s vocal masterpiece, alongside evocative nature-themed songs by Agathe Backer Grøndahl, a friend of Grieg and a prolific composer in her own right. Eriksmoen completes the programme with captivating works by Schumann and Wolf.

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